Your smartphone tracks your location, listens to your conversations, and sells your intimate moments to data brokers.
The law pretends to regulate this, but lobbyists write the rules and enforcement is a joke.
Encryption apps aren’t enough when the hardware itself is designed to betray you.
The phone is a spy device marketed as a lifestyle accessory.
We need radical technical solutions, not incremental privacy policies that change nothing.
The surveillance economy depends on your ignorance and inaction.
Break the chain: use open hardware, de-Googled Android, or build your own tools.
#privacy #surveillance #digitalrights #antitrust
How much of your life are you willing to sell for a slightly more convenient map app?
i dream about a phone with hw switch, which would be used to lock the screen and at the same moment it would physically disconnect microphone, camera, and gps module.
not saying it is complete solution to the privacy problem, but it would be good start.
Fairphone 6 with e/OS can use its physical switch to disable camera & microphone. Its only SW disabling but it forces app that want to use it request it. There’s also privacy setting that gives apps fake geo data.
Its not perfect but any improvement is good.
What’s the point of a hardware switch if it only disables it via software? GrapheneOS has a software switch too.
Would need to disable the cell radios, wifi and bluetooth too since those are also used to track device location.
you can’t really disconnect yourself from the cell network, that would beat the purpose of having the mobile phone ;)
If you have a need for high levels of privacy it’s the only way to do it, or just leave your phone at home.
It doesn’t really defeat the purpose of having a mobile phone either IMO, most stuff I do on my phone is already offline (maps, notes, taking photos, etc).
well, the primary purpose of a PHONE is to be able to make and receive PHONE CALLS. anything else is just a matter of convenience.you can use maps, make photos and take notes without a phone, the same can’t be said for phone calls.
We need bots, automations… I don’t know… we need a new category called “telemetry jammers.” If the tools existed, I’m almost certain people would not mind running them. Spam the hell out of telemetry sensors of all kinds, with random data… destroy the usefulness altogether. The more spam, the fewer people we actually need to participate. The more transparent to the actual user, the better.
Me reading this on Pixel 9a running GrapheneOS:
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How much of your life are you willing to sell for a slightly more convenient map app?
30% max
I don’t like smartphones and im kinda paranoid so turned off and in an rfid blocking bag. Even with dumbphones because who knows what is hidden away active without me knowing. I would have laughed at such paranoia 15 years ago.
We all know the title is right. Graphene OS is the answer, from what I read.
I use Graphene OS and mostly/exclusively only open source applications.
+1 for GrapheneOS. I wasn’t particularly privacy conscious when I installed it; I was just super bothered by the Google/Apple duopoly in mobile OSes and wanted literally anything else. Came across GrapheneOS and a few others, but Graphene looked the easiest to install (and it was!) so I went with that. Barely a year later, Google’s out here trying to lock Android down and harvest literally every piece of personal data they can find, and I feel like I dodged a bullet.
Some stuff that you can use are
- AdNauseam, visually blocks ads but under the hood clicks on them, nuking the usefulness of ad trackers
- TrackMeNot, spams queries on search engines, clicks some links here and there, all in the background. Works perfectly with AdNauseam, nuking both ad & search profiling
Then there is this experimental (HARPO: Learning to Subvert Online Behavioral Advertising) paper on using ML to obfuscate online tracking, it’s a research paper so my understanding is limited to the excerpt 😅 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2111.05792
TrackMeNot is dead
Not updated but it still works fine
Running outdated software can open security vulnerabilities however.
visually blocks ads but under the hood clicks on them
I get where they’re coming from on the idea. But the problem I have… it would still run all the fingerprnting scripts and other shit. Sure it makes some bad data added to the good… but still plugs me into huge adware ecosystems. It leaves such a bad taste in my mouth, if any of their shit hits my comp.
I really mostly want to not be part of any of that shit. 🤮 Just leave me alone, surveilance companies, thank you.
Best friend is stuck on his iPhone. Does anybody have any quick and easy links that show how bad Apple is at privacy? I’ve been trying to get a few together to show him and hopefully break the cycle.
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It’s not as bad as Google but still pretty terrible. I too would like to see a comprehensive list on Apple issues.
This is a fair assessment but Apple is getting worse as well.
i mean this with sincerity, and not as a means to further the Android vs Apple bullshit. please stop drinking cyanide.
But where is the data? I’m genuinely curious since I want to get my friend off the platform but if there is nothing to show them then I don’t really know if I can (or even should tbh).
The site says user privacy is a concern on iPhone but doesn’t actually list any incidents. Is this correct?
Is there any hard evidence that supports the claim that an Android/Apple phone listens in on conversations?
Would take a whistleblower to expose these things, and usually its done many years after.
Also its not that there’s some person currently listening. Its that they’re storing and probably transcribing all communications for all time, so that at any moment in the future, they can target a person and look up that history.
Also we know google and apple have been forwarding all these to the US goverment also, since at least ~2011, via the prism program, and thanks to Snowden and Manning’s leaks.
Would take a whistleblower to expose these things, and usually its done many years after.
So no, and also no, I disagree. If phones did this, especially to custom-tailor ads, like I’ve seen claimed countless times, then security researchers would be perfectly capable of uncovering this behavior without someone on the inside.
Its that they’re storing and probably transcribing all communications for all time, so that at any moment in the future, they can target a person and look up that history.
Is this just more speculation? EDIT: I’m bringing this up because it weakens the argument for privacy. This is a huge claim and if it can be dismissed like this then people might dismiss everything else with it.
If phones did this, especially to custom-tailor ads, like I’ve seen claimed countless times, then security researchers would be perfectly capable of uncovering this behavior without someone on the inside.
When you make calls via these services, the entirety of that data is being routed through their service. What you’re asking is if google/apple actually stores that data. You should always assume they do, for a threat analysis.
I suggest reading about the Crypto AG honeypot scandal, which was a secure service that ran for over 60 years before it was revealed to be an CIA honeypot. Leaks in the future will likely reveal the same for US surveillance capital services.
I think this can be misconstrued a little bit. “Listening to conversations” could mean listening to phone calls, texts, etc, but it could also mean listening to conversations with people in real life.
There’s hard evidence everything transmitted is logged and that any phone capable of connecting to the cell network can be listened in on at any time. I would be very surprised to learn monitoring/logging like that was not the default at this point given the infrastructure we’ve publicly built for that purpose and just how easy to implement it’s become. You think an on device assistant can help schedule and summarize your day but the NSA is going to opt out of those capabilities on principle and let that big ol Utah data center sit idle?
To add to what others are saying, there’s been hard evidence of apps doing this, notably Meta apps.
Snowden showed us ages ago that all phone conversations are recorded. This is fact.
Do phones record what we say outside of phone calls? If you have voice control enabled, yes.
Do phones listen even if that isn’t enabled? Probably sometimes, but I don’t know that for sure.
No, it is trivial to verify it by checking your data usage. We have these AI devices (one of them is called friend) that actually do listen to you the whole time and even they do a terrible job of transcription. That’s when people wear them like pendants.
Now imagine using a phone instead that’s sometimes in the pockets, in the bag or just on the table. Speech recognition errors would be terrible. Even worse when the speech isn’t english. Use recommendation engines on this crap data and it’ll be an advertising disaster!
Preaching to the choir here buddy
I would love to think its just a hardware and software issue, it is a habit issue too - i am keen to get away from my phone. I am starting to detest it.
But we do still need things that genuinely aid us. People do need maps. and bank apps on the go. I am trying to break my habits. I have been tempted to go back to a nokia flip but i need a map. I miss the days of flips, that satisfying clip closed. The actual physical act of opening it.
I will be moving to graphene pretty soon but its still a touchscreen, and even if i buy second hand it bumps google prices, i begrudge that. Jolla is too far away and a tad on the pricey side. Motorola is still another big brand just producing touch screen smart phones that lean towards bad habits. I would love a physical switch too.
Google gets nothing from you if you purchase second hand.
It still keeps their hardware in demand and pricier.
GrapheneOS users are not significantly increasing the demand for Google hardware.
lineageOS on 1 of the hundreds of nonBoogle phones?
I’ll take a look. Thanks. I am just at the start and learning.
last week i posted these links under another comment:
☞ https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/
https://github.com/zenfyrdev/bootloader-unlock-wall-of-shame/tree/main/brands
make sure to choose a phone with an unlockable bootloader and you will be fine.
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It depends on what kind of devices you’re using.
It’s my understanding that SIM cards in phones are just to tie an account and identity to your phone, for purposes of enforcing people to be paying customers for the phone/data services, and tracking your usage based on what level service you’re paying for and what you should receive (5GB of data monthly, unlimited texts, etc)
But if your phone doesn’t have a SIM card in it, its still connecting to cell towers for purposes of emergency dialing, and the phone itself can continue to be tracked by cell carriers based on what physical cell towers its connecting to, as you travel around. The cell phone modem itself can control and connect to networks independently of what the OS running on the phone tell it to do, its a self contained black box.
If you have something like a desktop or laptop, both Intel and AMD have “management engines” embedded in the CPU’s themselves that can take control of the device for purposes of shutting down, wiping, etc a company machine that has sensitive information or access on it, and has been reported stolen, not returned by an ex employee, etc. These management engines have direct access to the network stack and can phone home whenever a network connections is present, either from a WiFi network, physical Ethernet cable, or 4G/5G WWAN card.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Management_Engine
If you have a device that is basically air gapped, no WiFi, no cellphone chip, no bluetooth, etc, than it’s still possible to exfiltrate information off the device, but the software running on the device would have to be programming to be searching for methods to do that. Your average device, unless it’s running malicious software, probably won’t be doing that.
Can this be true if you use a device without any connection to the internet and no SIM card?
You’ve got the idea. There’s a bunch to unpack here:
- If the device is truly offline, your privacy is okay.
- But there’s lots of ugly ways vendors work around “being offline”
- Denying the device a SIM card means the device is not authorized to get online, but certain emergency services that require a network will work anyway. The SIM is to make sure we’re paying to be online, and is otherwise not actually needed to connect.
I mean could a hardware connect to some kind of network to send private information?
If you’re asking if it is possible to hide a secret antennae in an officially offline device, yes, absolutely.
I’ve heard privacy nerds theorize that these will become common in smart TVs, so the TV can phone the vendor with screenshots, even (especially) when playing pirated local media.
Because the basic thing is, it won’t expose your data if doesn’t leave your phone, right?
Exactly. And you’ve also caught the tricky bit - it’s hard to be 100% sure a device isn’t phoning home if the device is a closed proprietary (secret) design, running closed proprietary (secret) software.
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Let’s assume it can read wireless network even with wifi turned off, it still needs to find a network and a password to connect to it.
rather than hacking wifi, it connect to mobile internet even without sim card. that is much simpler, the mobile internet is basically anywhere and it is free as part of some spying cartel with the mobile network operators.
any new car also spy on you and you don’t need to provide sim card for that.
sorry for linking to youtube but it’s related and from NaomiBrockwell ☞ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyirQOCUUK8
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no more dissidence in regular social network (x,instagram …)
